Summers Past

"I don't care, just don't stop what you're doing," Judy responded. She told me later he'd started pulling out, but she'd grabbed him and held him in place. Fred said later that he'd thought it funny when I hadn't tasted quite the same as Judy normally did but really didn't think anything of it until she'd spoken. He'd known for sure as soon as he touched my breasts that I wasn't her.

I think I figured out exactly what happened first. Gary and I hadn't ever played around with others, but I knew what some of his fantasies were. I'd told him about my past, but although he admitted that the thought of sharing with others was exciting, he hadn't really come to grips with sex and love being two different things. We'd talked multiple times about what we'd do if the situation arose for swapping so had at least discussed it, but Fred and Judy hadn't. I just said "It's OK with Gary and me, are you OK with this Fred?"

"Judy? Are you ok?"

"'God yes!' And that was it."

"So you've actually been swapping with them since before they were married?" I asked when it was obvious she was done with her tale.

"We never really talk about it as 'swapping,' it's just that we share each other."

Neither of us said anything for a moment before Gayle said "Well?"

"Well what?" I asked in return. Her voice had a touch of tension to it but I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted.

"You don't think badly of me? Of us?"

Ah -- that's what. "Why does it matter?" She didn't say anything; I was about to ask again when she finally answered.

"Because you're my hero. You've been my hero all my life, my idol. Do you remember back when I was really little, how I'd climb into your lap, just the way Bug did years later?

I thought about it for a moment, but it was too far back -- it apparently didn't mean as much to me as when Bug was a kid, or perhaps she was just so much like her mom I couldn't remember the difference. "No. Maybe vaguely, but not really."

"I do. It was just the way Bug did later, and I used to remember what it had been like to be small, cuddling up in my big brothers lap. You always cuddled so good...." She paused; I could hear the memories in her mind. "I never wanted to disappoint you, and admittedly everything I've ever done in my life isn't exactly what mom and dad would have approved of. Until this happened with Bug, I just sort of assumed you'd be like them."

"So you hid it from them and me? Whatever you thought we wouldn't agree with?"

"I never lied about anything; I just didn't share things with them that I knew we wouldn't see eye to eye on."

"Or with me?"

"Or with you."

"So why now?"

She didn't say anything for seconds which, when talking on the phone, seems like hours. It's why it's always an effective method to get people to say more, get them on the phone, don't say anything and just wait.

"You know when I told you my girlfriends all thought you were a hottie and wanted to seduce you?"

"Uh-huh"

"Well it wasn't just them.

This time my quiet wasn't from enticing Gayle to say more, it was from absorbing what she'd told me. My sister was saying that she had the hots for me, my sister found out about my affair with her daughter, and now was telling me about her life and that she'd had a crush on me forever... it suddenly made sense.

"You were jealous. " Her silence confirmed everything. "Is that why you were always a little standoffish with Deb and me?"

"I guess. Even after you were married, I was a little jealous. She took you away from me."

"Debs always thought you just didn't like her."

"I liked Debs. I liked you too. It just hurt to know she was getting you, I guess I was always a little jealous of her."

I thought back to our youth. Gayle had been in Junior High school when I tried college the first time. I went into the military, she was about to graduate when I got home. I'd thought of her as a little girl when I left, and I'd been hooked by Debs almost immediately when I did come back. I'd never had a chance to notice Gayle was growing into a woman. Not that I would have allowed myself to be attracted to her, she was my sister after all, but I didn't even remember her as a woman back in those early days -- just as a little sister.

"So when did you start getting this attraction?"

"Umm, even when I was really little, you were always so big, so handsome." Something about the way she ended the sentence....

"But?"

I could almost hear her chewing on her lip before she continued.

"There was this one Saturday, everyone was gone. My girlfriend Amy and I were the only ones home. You always had football practice in the morning and in the afternoons you mowed lawns, so we weren't expecting you or anyone else."

"Uh-huh. And...?"

"We'd been playing around together and decided we'd see if we could find your magazines."

"Playing together?" I didn't know why I wanted her to say it, just something about the euphemism. She could have been saying they were playing with dolls or jacks or Monopoly -- but I knew what she meant. I'd interrupted, she didn't answer immediately -- I imagined she was thinking of how to rephrase.

"We... we'd been having sex. OK? We wanted to imagine boys and doing it with them and figured you might have something in your magazines."

An image of my room popped into my head. Back in the days before the age of computers and CD's and DVD's -- us horny guys relied on Playboy and Penthouse magazines and other, less mainstream, printed matter that could be found behind the counters at certain establishments. I thought I'd always kept my stash secret. "My magazines? How'd you know about my magazines?"

"Oh come on -- you're a guy, of course you did!" I thought about it for a moment - nah, there must be something else.

"Come on, Gayle -- how'd you know?" She giggled on the other end of the phone.

"Amy's next door neighbor -- remember him, your friend Jeff?"

I did, and suddenly I remembered. He'd dated Amy's older sister for quite a while. He also happened to be the one that had turned me on to where to get my self-satisfaction materials.

"That dog! I can't believe he spilled the beans." Jeff hadn't so much as crossed my mind in years, our paths never crossed more than once or twice after I went into the Marines, but I was still indignant that he'd told someone about my secret. And she still hadn't told me how she'd found them.

"Ok, so you knew I had something -- but how'd you find them?"

"You showed us."

"What? I showed you? I don't understand."

"Well -- you kind of didn't know we were there."

"You were where? Come on Gayle, what are you talking about?"

"It was that Saturday. You weren't supposed to come home, but Amy and I wanted to see what you had. We went into your room, and were looking everywhere, but couldn't find anything. When we heard you coming in the front door, it was too late for us to get out without you seeing us, so we ducked into your closet."

No sooner has she said "Saturday" than I knew how this story was going to end. I remembered Saturday afternoons when nobody was home and what I did. I imagined the two of them climbing into my closet, wondering how they got in without making any noise, pulling the door closed behind them so I wouldn't have known they were there.

The closet in my room had two slatted French doors that didn't allow anyone in the room to look into the closet, but anyone inside could look out through the slats and see everything. Many was the time when Mom had come looking for me, stepped into my room thinking I was there and left again after not finding me -- and I'd watched her come and go as I was in the closet standing quietly. I was well aware of how standing in the closet they would have been able to see me and the entire room, and I wouldn't have known they were there unless they'd made a noise.

"I think you thought you were the only one home, you didn't even close your bedroom door. You just came in and went straight to your dresser. You moved the couple of things off the top, pulled it out from the wall and leaned it back until it was resting against the wall, and then we watched you pull out your stash."

I didn't have to hear the rest -- I already knew. I thought I'd always been careful to hide my porn stash when anyone was in the house, but many was the time that I'd come home when no one was there and done exactly as she'd just described. I suppose I'd had the same dilemma as any other teen boy. I hadn't wanted it to be where my mom or dad might find it, but yet I'd wanted it close and fairly easy to get to for those moments when I was alone. When I'd realized there was a practically secret compartment under the dresser, it seemed to be the perfect hiding place. Too big for one person to move the dresser much, even if it was moved out for cleaning it was kept level and my box moved with it. It was only if you lifted the dresser completely, or as in my way of doing it, leaned it back against the wall, that the little hidden space below was exposed.

I always locked the front door so nobody could just walk into the house and left the bedroom door open so I could hear if anyone arrived home before I was done. I would then dig out my stash, leaving the dresser canted for rapid replacement if need be, stripped off my clothes and beat off.

"Did you enjoy the show?" I asked, saving her from having to tell me.

"We hadn't intended to be there."

"I know. Shit happens." Memories flooded back through my mind -- and suddenly little things that I remembered made sense. I always put my stuff back in the same order, but once I'd found two magazines reversed. Another time, the box wasn't quite in the same location as I always put it, just slightly off, but both of those memories flooded back like they were yesterday. "You used to look at my porn, didn't you?"

"Uh-huh," She giggled, "But we'd much rather have watched you."

""I'll bet you would have." I paused momentarily, thinking of what to say. "So how often did you watch?"

"We didn't. Just that once was the only time. We only dared try looking at your stuff when we knew we were absolutely alone for a long time. Amy was always petrified we'd get caught. We looked at your magazines lots -- but that was the only time we saw you wank it."

"Wank it? "I laughed.

"Well what do you call it?"

"Me? Beat off, jerk off, masturbate; wank it just isn't a description I ever used. So how'd you get out?"

"When you'd finished, you wiped your stomach with a Kleenex, put your stuff away and went in to take a shower. We snuck out and went to Amy's -- didn't come back for an hour or so and made a lot of noise when we came in. You were in your room acting like you were studying, but we knew what you'd really been doing. It was a Saturday and you never studied on Saturdays."

I laughed out loud. "Busted years ago and I never knew it." She giggled in return.

"You were my first, you know?"

"First what?" I asked, not understanding her meaning.

"When you came -- that was the first time I ever saw a guy cum."

"Really?"

"Really.

We were both silent for a few moments, my mind catching up with what she'd just told me; her mind apparently waiting for my reaction.

"You didn't have to tell me this, Gayle. After all this time -- it really doesn't matter what happened when we were kids does it?"

There was no response from the telephone.

"Gayle?"

"No, I guess not. It's just... after everything that happened... you know I always felt like I had to hide anything sexual. The way mom and dad always made snide comments about Aunt Phyllis; that I had a crush on my brother; my best girlfriend was my lover. When I left home -- until I met Fred, well -- I had a couple of pretty wild years. I didn't dislike Debs you know -- it's just that it was you, and she took you away just when I was finally big enough for you to notice me... and I was jealous. And then when I realized what had to be happening between you and Bug, I really wasn't as angry as I let on, I was just jealous."

"The relationship she had with you -- it always reminded me of how we were, and then she took it to where I'd only ever fantasized about. All those years I'd dreamed about you, and you were with my daughter instead. I didn't even think about it being at all like me and Uncle Will and Aunt Phyllis, all I could think was that you had to be seducing Bug, even though her bag and everything that was happening seemed to say otherwise. And then when you let me slap you... all of a sudden I wasn't angry anymore, and I realized it really wasn't any different than, well, than me. No different than what I did."

I let the silence linger for a moment. "It's ok, Gayle. There's no need to apologize." I thought a moment about whether I could ask, and decided that since she seemed to be in a "confess all sins" mode -- she'd probably tell. "So just what exactly happened between you and Uncle Will and Aunt Phyllis? What was it you said, that you and your boyfriend went to a swingers club and they were there?"

She didn't answer immediately, I was about to throw out the "It's ok, don't tell me, it's really none of my business comment," when she finally spoke up.

"That's what I told you, but it's not the entire truth."

"What? That you had sex with Uncle Will?"

"No, that's the truth."

"I don't understand."

"What I told you was the truth. My boyfriend wanted a threesome, wanted to include my roommate. I knew he had the hots for her, enough that I thought he might dump me for her, so when he brought up the idea of visiting a swingers club, I agreed. What I didn't tell you is that he heard about the swingers club from me. He didn't know it, but I was the one that gave him the idea. I knew about the club because I'd been there before."

It was quiet while I digested this. She'd known where the club was, how to get in, which meant that she'd presumably... "It wasn't an accident that you met Uncle Will and Aunt Phyllis there, was it?"

Her silence was all the confirmation I needed.

"How'd that happen?"

Again her silence was awkward. "It's ok Gayle -- I don't need to know."

"No, it's OK. I want to tell you. Do you want the long story or the short version?"

"I tell you what -- I'll leave it up to you how much you want to tell me."

~

I was on the side of the airplane where I could look down at the Redding airport as we approached and circled to land the other direction. A single strip of blacktop stretched from north to south, a small terminal was visible standing by itself in the middle of the airport with no other planes around. Off to one side was a large hanger with a bevy of small planes parked out in front. The airport, remotely situated in a farming area away from the city, was totally different than the bustling San Francisco airport we'd left an hour before with its multiple runways and hundreds of planes. The golden brown of the valley contrasted sharply with the green forest covered hills in the distance. "No wonder California is called the "Golden State," I thought.

Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Will were waiting and waving from the terminal as I walked down the boarding ladder and across the concrete, the heat of the valley hitting me as I left the air conditioning of the plane.

"Oh My God, Girl -- you are so grown up!" Aunt Phyllis said, greeting me with a warm, full body hug and a kiss on the cheek. Uncle Will also gave me a kiss, but only a one armed hug with his other being in a cast.

Aunt Phyllis was, as Uncle Phil used to say, "A real looker." She was in her early thirties, but didn't look it. About 5' 6" tall, she was wearing a floral blouse and short shorts that really accented her bottom and long legs. The blouse had a deep "u" front, exposing quite a bit of cleavage and stopped just below her D cup breasts, leaving the impression that she wasn't wearing clothes to cover her body -- but was wearing something to cover her breasts. She'd always been nicely built, and what she wore accented what she had. As always, I thought she looked young, chic, and sexy, and no matter where she went she turned heads. Seen through the conservative eyes of my mother, I knew she thought of her as "loose" and quite often inappropriate.

Uncle Will on the other hand was several years older than Phyllis, and six inches taller. Ruggedly handsome, at six foot and one hundred eighty pounds, he was neither skinny nor fat. I felt the strength in his one arm as he hugged me.

Uncle Will's arm had been broken in an accident; he had another week or so before the cast was to come off. Ostensibly this was the reason for me being here, Uncle Wills arm and his partial incapacitation, but the real reason is that I wanted to get away from home for the last summer before I started college. Although rural California wasn't my first choice for someplace to spend my summer -- as it turned out, it couldn't have been better.

"So tell us, what's up with your life?" Aunt Phyllis gently began the twenty questions routine as soon as we were in the car for the hour or more drive to their "ranch". Located out of the valley and more into the trees, I knew from past visits it would be somewhat cooler than the blistering heat of Redding. "I can't believe how much you've grown -- the last time we saw you was, what, 6 years ago? Oh my god, you're absolutely gorgeous!"

The questions and answers kept coming; where was I going to college, did I have a boyfriend, how was everyone, where was my brother Jim and his wife, how were mom and dad? The conversation kept my mind off the trip, it seemed like just moments and we were pulling off the main road.

"Please Gayle; just call us Phyllis and Will. You're much too grown up anymore, we can dispense with the relational names, don't you think?" I'd just stepped into the kitchen to ask if I could help with dinner when she interrupted me.

"Ok, Au... Phyllis." I grinned, having almost repeated exactly what she'd said not to. "Can I help with dinner?"

Right from the beginning, Phyllis and I hit it off. I was definitely attracted to her, I was pretty sure that she was to me also. I told her how my life had been; high school, how my rudimentary love life had included two boyfriends to date, that although it had been fun -- neither had worked out. I told her my best friend Amy was upset that I'd be gone all summer. I told her how mom and I hadn't been seeing eye to eye for quite some time, particularly when it came to boyfriends.

I didn't outright tell her about Amy and me being lovers, although I did admit -- when she asked if my boyfriends and I had ever "done anything," that I had more fun with Amy than I ever had with boys, but that my mother's desire for me to graduate from college as a virgin was a moot point.

"You don't like boys?" I glanced up; her face gave away nothing of her own feelings on the subject.

"Oh God no, I love men, I just haven't had good experiences with teenage boys that don't know what they're doing." She laughed at that, and proceeded to tell me about when she'd been growing up and the battles she'd had with her mother. I'd told her everything that was going on with me, and in return, she told me about her life "after high school."

Will went to bed at what I thought a fairly early hour, but Phyllis and I sat and talked about everything for hours more. Will had to go to work in the morning and we didn't. Phyllis had to get up to drive him in as he couldn't drive just yet, so eventually we went to bed or we'd have been up all night. Phyllis got up every morning and took him to work, and one of his co-workers drove him home in the afternoons.

The first day we just hung around the house. They had a beautiful farm, isolated behind stands of trees and a normally closed gate at the end of the drive. I helped Phyllis with her chores and we continued talking, learning all about each other. Phyllis was dressed very casually, I noticed she didn't even have a bra on, just a tee shirt and shorts, so I felt comfortable wearing practically nothing also. That evening when Will got home, Phyllis went in and helped him change so he was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt just like when they'd picked me up at the airport.